The FBI reported that victims of burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft lost a total of $15.3 billion dollars in 2009 (FB1 2010). While crime is often associated with the underprivileged, crimes committed by the wealthy and powerful remain an under-punished and costly problem within society. High rates of poverty and single-parent homes correlated with high rates of juvenile violence. Recent studies Sampson conducted with Lydia Bean (2006) revealed similar findings. They also determined that social disorganization was, in turn, associated with high rates of crime and delinquency-or deviance. They found that poverty, ethnic diversity, and family disruption in given localities had a strong positive correlation with social disorganization. The theory of Shaw and McKay has been further tested and expounded upon by Robert Sampson and Byron Groves (1989). The mix of cultures and values created a smaller society with different ideas of deviance, and those values and ideas were transferred from generation to generation. Shaw and McKay concluded that socioeconomic status correlated to race and ethnicity resulted in a higher crime rate. As the urban population expanded, wealthier people moved to the suburbs and left behind the less privileged. New immigrants, many of them poor and lacking knowledge of the English language, lived in neighborhoods inside the city. Shaw and McKay noticed that this pattern matched the migration patterns of Chicago citizens. They found that violence and crime were at their worst in the middle of the city and gradually decreased the farther someone traveled from the urban center toward the suburbs. Researchers Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay (1942) studied crime patterns in Chicago in the early 1900s. Terrorists or freedom fighters look to overthrow a society’s goals through socially unacceptable means.Ĭlifford Shaw and Henry McKay: Cultural Deviance TheoryĬultural deviance theory suggests that conformity to the prevailing cultural norms of lower-class society causes crime. Rebellion: A handful of people rebel and replace a society’s goals and means with their own.Some beggars and street people have withdrawn from society’s goal of financial success. Retreatism: Others retreat and reject society’s goals and means.These members of society focus on conformity rather than attaining a distant dream. Ritualism: People who ritualize lower their goals until they can reach them through socially acceptable ways.Innovation: Those who innovate pursue goals they cannot reach through legitimate means by instead using criminal or deviant means.They pursue their goals to the extent that they can through socially accepted means. Conformity: Those who conform choose not to deviate.Merton defined five ways people respond to this gap between having a socially accepted goal and having no socially accepted way to pursue it. According to Merton’s theory, an entrepreneur who can’t afford to launch his own company may be tempted to embezzle from his employer for start-up funds. A person may have the socially acceptable goal of financial success but lack a socially acceptable way to reach that goal. However, not everyone in our society stands on equal footing. A woman who attends business school, receives her MBA, and goes on to make a million-dollar income as CEO of a company is said to be a success. From birth, we’re encouraged to achieve the “American Dream” of financial success. Sociologist Robert Merton agreed that deviance is an inherent part of a functioning society, but he expanded on Durkheim’s ideas by developing strain theory, which notes that access to socially acceptable goals plays a part in determining whether a person conforms or deviates.
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